Alive
by LettdViolet
Summary: Danny contemplates death. Set just after the portal incident. Rated T for perhaps disturbing themes and images.


_Alive, alive, alive_. The silence of Danny's bedroom amplified his heartbeats, which seemed to speak to him. _Alive, alive, alive_. He stood there, blinking in the dying light of sunset, not really sure what had just happened. The empty room seemed even stiller now that everybody had left. Everybody but him, and the stillness was suffocating.

His parents were downstairs, shooing Sam and Tucker out the door. Danny was supposed to be in bed, but he opened his window to watch his friends go and breathe some outside air. Breathing felt nice.

There were black streaks of makeup on Sam's cheeks, despite her trying to rub them off, and Tucker was unusually pale. They seemed relieved to be gone but hesitant to leave. After only a few moments of discussion, they apparently decided to go home. They walked away together, stopping to catch Danny's eyes and halfheartedly wave back. All of their emotions had been wrung out and frayed. It wasn't every day that somebody close to you was killed.

But... Danny hadn't been killed. Not really, even if it had sure felt like it at the time. When he pressed that button inside the portal, electricity had wracked his body. It had to have been thousands of volts. Thousands of hard-hitting volts throwing rocks at every available inch of him. He had felt the skin blistering and crackling, his heart stuttering to a stop, his muscles spasming. If Danny was being honest with himself, he knew he should have died inside the portal. He wasn't ready to be honest, though.

The hands slowly closing the window were unblemished, normal hands. No burns. Danny changed into his pajamas, despite the red numbers on his alarm clock just having changed to 7:38. It was early but definitely time for bed. Maybe he'd be on time to school tomorrow for once. He noticed he was a little bit sore under his clothes, but his entire body, like his hands, seemed healthy. The black hair on his head hadn't even been singed. No burns, no scars, nothing. What did it mean?

His mom and dad came through Danny's bedroom door again to tuck him into bed, and he let them. When they asked questions, he answered with a soft "I'm fine". Danny wondered if he should tell them about what Sam and Tucker had said they'd seen, but then decided not to. It was probably just a fluke, anyway. And if it wasn't, he'd have plenty of time to tell them. Later. They were excited about the portal right now. He'd made it work, and they could finally run their tests after years of work and a day of crushing disappointment. Even as they said goodnight to Danny, they were both discussing how to power their spectrometer, and what weapons they should set up.

So, Danny thought when he was alone, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling that weren't quite glowing yet. Was he dead? Danny really didn't want to answer. If he thought too hard about it, he might end up concluding that he was dead. His heart beat a little harder at the thought. _Alive, alive, alive?_ it thumped. But something... something was wrong.

Danny slid his right hand under his shirt and pressed his hand to the spot where his heart beat. His hand was warmer than his chest, which confused him. What was that spot of cold he could feel? _Alive? alive? a-_

And suddenly, it stopped. Danny froze. The pulse in his arm died down, confirming what his hand was telling him. He didn't dare move. Cold drenched Danny from his middle out. With all the adrenaline buzzing in his head, he should have been breathing hard and his heart should have been pumping painfully. But it wasn't.

This was really it. At least his parents had seen him one last time; given him hugs. They'd find his corpse in his bed later that night, probably, unless they got too caught up with the portal, which was more likely. Then it would be Jazz, coming home from a late night at the library again, to find him dead. How horrible for her.

Even if his parents never noticed he was gone, Danny was sure his sister would. He didn't want her to be the one to find his corpse. Jazz would break down. Even just the false, imagination-fueled image of her sobbing made Danny squeeze his eyes shut and tears slide down his temples, toward his sheets. How long did dying of heart failure take, anyway? Knowing he was dead, but not able to stop thinking about the reaction of his family, was torture.

Danny clutched his shirt tighter and let the tears come. Then he stopped, hiccuping in confusion. He distinctly remembered his bare hand on his bare chest, but now... there was a glove on his hand. And it was on top of his shirt rather than under it. What? For the second time in as many minutes, Danny stopped moving. Stopped breathing. It scared him that he didn't sense any burning need to inhale.

Slowly, jerkily, Danny opened his hand and brought it to his eyes. The glove was white. He used it to dry his face, and the fabric got darker where it soaked up the water. Was he dead _now_ , then? That glove couldn't have come out of nowhere.

Though he didn't think he really needed to, Danny took a deep breath to ground himself. The air felt warm, like what came out of the top of the fireplace in the winter. He set his jaw for courage. Then he sat up and looked down. His breath caught and halted again, his fears half-confirmed.

It was exactly the way Sam and Tucker had described it. Danny touched the slick black spandex of the hazmat suit his dad had lovingly sewn. Its colors had been reversed - black and white rather than white and black - but everything else indicated that this was the same suit. Even the boots under his blankets felt right. A quick grab, and Danny was looking cross-eyed at a lock of snow white hair clenched between his shaking fingers. His hair. Sam had mentioned that the color had completely reversed. A hesitant glance at the mirror in the opposite corner of his room turned into a staring contest with himself.

Gone were the bright blue eyes that he'd always considered his best feature. Now, his irises burned the same color as the working ghost portal: acid green. The glow lit up strands of his hair and parts of his skin. Actually, when Danny really looked, he realized that it wasn't his eyes that were doing most of the glowing. It was the rest of him. That was definitely abnormal.

As Danny watched his reflection, transfixed, his eyes slid down and saw his bed in the mirror. He still sat on it, a constellation-peppered comforter over his folded legs. There was an impression in the pillow behind him.

A frightening, but plausible, explanation _had_ begun to take root in Danny's mind. Perhaps he had died in that portal, then through some fluke, came back, but his body hadn't been able to hold onto life. That would mean that he died up here, just seconds ago, and was now looking at his ghost. Ghosts weren't real, but... the portal worked. There was _something_ on the other side. Something that shared colors with his eyes. It made Danny acutely uncomfortable to think of his death and subsequent rising, but it was an explanation.

So sure, being the ghost of himself was possible.

But there wasn't a body left behind on the bed.

Danny scrambled away to get a better look, falling on the floor in his anxiety. It was true - no body. That meant that his body was still his, but was it even alive? Was his _own ghost_ possessing his corpse? That was the stuff of horror movies.

And if he _was_ dead... his parents were ghost hunters. They hadn't ever seen a ghost, actually, but they had sensors. And they had the portal to use, thanks to him. They'd find any ghost in their house, and Danny didn't know what they would do if they found him, their son or not. An image of the arsenal of ghost weapons downstairs swam through his mind. Danny felt fine, no malevolent obsessions rising yet, but he had been taught that all ghosts had obsessions that drove them to destroy. Even if he didn't feel that, who was to say that he wouldn't later?

No, Danny couldn't think like that right now. He wasn't even sure if he _was_ a ghost. Besides, his parents loved him. They'd listen to him if he told them he was fine. Probably. With a scowl, Danny stood and tried to derail that train of thought. There was no use worrying about his parents. They were good people, ultimately, and he wouldn't need to worry about them if he was careful and took... whatever this was one step at a time. He should be more concerned with _what the heck_ was going on.

Danny picked his way over piles of clothes to his dresser and looked more closely at himself in the mirror. His skin had pocks, crevices, all the normal folds and wrinkles and freckles that he was so used to seeing on his normal... living face. The only difference, really, was the color of his hair and eyes, and possibly that his skin was tanner. Burned, maybe. Danny tried to picture his reflection with the normal coloring. Black hair and blue eyes from his parents' Irish ancestry. He pretended to not see the weird glow that was messing up the shadows on his face. He almost felt his soft, pink pajamas that he'd had forever.

The light in his eyes seemed to flicker. Danny jumped. Was that a good thing? Was he living? He pressed his hand to his chest again, exactly as he had only a few minutes before. It was silent and still under his fingers, but Danny almost thought he could feel a phantom heart thumping deep inside him.

 _Please,_ he begged. _Come on!_ Maybe if he thought about it really hard, something would happen. Mind over matter, right? Black hair, blue eyes. He remembered getting out of bed that morning and seeing himself in the mirror. His hair had been an utter mess, but he sort of liked it that way. Jazz had come in...

If this worked, if Danny could prove to himself that he wasn't dead, then Jazz wouldn't have to find his corpse. The image of her crying at his doorway turned into another morning where she stood in the same spot and told him to hurry, though she always had a twinkle in her eye. Danny knew he loved her.

And just like that, the coldness under his hand receded. His skin warmed. A weird glow grew exponentially every millisecond until Danny had to shut his eyes. It suddenly stopped, as if somebody had flipped a switch.

The silence rang loudly in Danny's ears, and he swallowed, keeping his eyes closed. His hand, still pressed into his chest, shook. The glove seemed to have disappeared, leaving just his pajamas. It was all corporeal and solid. His lungs begged for air, and he inhaled like a drowning man. Then his body resumed its normal rhythm of breathing. Those were good signs, Danny desperately hoped. He was fine. Probably.

Okay, moment of truth, Danny told himself. He opened his eyes slowly, not quite daring to just _look_. What if he still glowed? What if his body had slumped to the ground, its life finally spent?

Bright blue eyes in the mirror met Danny's gaze. The sunlight was now almost completely gone, making every shadow deepen into black. His hair was nearly invisible. For better or for worse, Danny's appearance had returned to normal. There was no glowing, and after a quick, heart-stopping glance at the dark floor, Danny was sure there was no body. He checked his bed and the rest of the room - still no body. He barely dared believe it. He wasn't actually dead... ?

A soft knock at the door, followed by the sharp click of the handle, chased Danny's heart into his throat. He whirled around to face the intruder, moving his hand from his chest to the back of the dresser.

His sister Jazz stood in the tiny slice of hallway light. For a wild moment, Danny looked at her in horror, sure that all she would see was her little brother dead on the floor. But her eyes snapped straight to his face.

"Hey, little brother," she said quietly into the darkness. Danny couldn't see her very well, since the light came from behind her, but he could hear the smile in her voice. "Just wanted to say goodnight."

"Uh - thanks, Jazz," Danny stammered. He gripped the lip of his dresser harder and swallowed.

His sister moved farther into the room, her clothes rustling in the quiet. "What's got you so nervous, huh?" she asked. Shadows played across her concerned expression.

Danny watched Jazz with wide eyes. He opened his mouth to tell her nothing was wrong. "I fixed the ghost portal," he said instead.

"What?" Jazz reached an arm around Danny's shoulders, not seeming to notice that he shied away from her touch. What if his body _felt_ dead, cold and stiff?

"Well, don't worry, Danny," Jazz continued, gently pulling him back to the bed. She didn't mention any strangeness, which Danny took as a good sign. "Mom and Dad just need to see that their ghost obsession is unhealthy for both them and you. Once the portal fails to yield any solid results, they'll pull back and start dedicating their lives to other things. Heaven knows they're smart enough to do anything else they want."

The bed squeaked a bit when Danny laid back down under Jazz's prompting. She pulled the blanket up over him and tucked a lock of long red hair behind her ear. Both of them showed signs of Celtic heritage, albeit in different ways. The thought comforted Danny, for some weird reason.

"You're a great kid, Danny," Jazz told him, smiling a little. "Goodnight."

"But, Jazz," Danny said weakly, before she could close the door. She stopped and turned back.

"The - the portal," he continued. "It works."

Jazz scowled like she was confused, but frowned deeply in dread and surprise. "Are you sure?" Neither of them had really believed in the ghosts their parents chased, much less that the portal would actually work. Danny definitely hadn't, up until it _had_.

He nodded vehemently. "I fixed it. It... shocked me... but now it works!"

"What!" Jazz's eyes widened, and Danny winced. He hadn't meant to tell her about the shocking part, but Jazz had already rushed over and was checking his arms and neck for visible injuries.

"Jazz, I'm fine," Danny protested, trying to pull away. Was he fine, though? He kept the thought to himself.

"It doesn't look as if you're very hurt, but drink some water, okay? I'm going to take you to the doctor's tomorrow." Jazz's jaw was clenched as she crossed back to the door. "Their invention hurt you _directly_. I can't believe this happened. Actually, yes I can. Mom and Dad have always been careless, and now... now..." She held the door handle too tightly.

"Jazz," Danny complained, but she had already shut his door. He could hear her feet stomp down the stairs and knew she was going to the basement lab. Where the portal was.

Danny found that he didn't really care much that his parents would be chewed out by the child psychologist Jazz. The portal _had_ hurt him, but he didn't really care about that, either. Earlier, he had been afraid of being dead. That was the big question. He was still afraid of it. But would a dead person be able to talk to their sister like nothing was wrong? Danny had a growing suspicion that no, he wasn't actually dead. Something had happened to him, but for now, he would settle for, well, maybe not alive, but not dead. Not dead sounded great.

Mostly, Danny was relieved that Jazz didn't have to find his body. It looked like he would live, at least for a while longer. The uncomfortable image of his sister finding him retreated to the back of his mind, where he decided it would stay. He didn't want to think about it, and it didn't seem that he would have to.

It was quiet in Danny's room again. The sun had finished setting, leaving every shadow as dark as space. Distant echoes of Jazz's familiar voice brought him comfort, even though her tone was probably angry. Danny's alarm clock blinked red, and pieces of shuttle models reflected light creeping under the door. The glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling were sort of glowing, but quickly fading. The peaceful whirr of the air conditioner abruptly clicked off. It wound itself into silence.

The only sound left now was Danny's heart, beating the way it had his whole life, the way he hoped it would for a long while yet.

 _Alive. Alive. Alive._

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** So. second story. Still a oneshot. Maybe a longer one is coming, if I continue to get good feedback. I seriously was not expecting getting such good responses from people on my first.

I hope you liked it! I want to hear your criticism, if you have any. Thank you very much!


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